The future coalition poses a threat to independent deputies

So far, the only result of the talks on the coalition is the post of Arseniy Yatsenyuk

Photo: Reuters

The Petro Poroshenko Bloc, People’s Front party and Samopomich agreed on the division of voices in the managing body of the future coalition. However, no common grounds have been found so far as to the rules of the new majority in the Verkhovna Rada and its collaboration with the Cabinet of Ministers.

Modest success

Today the representatives of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, the People’s Front and the Samopomich union will hold the next round of talks on forming a coalition. The talks on this issue have been ongoing for a week, though officially they began last Friday when three representatives of each of the political forces held a meeting in the Verkhovna Rada. “On Friday we managed to agree on the formation of a council of the coalition, which is the administrative body of the union. It will include three deputies from each faction, including their leaders. Every faction will have only one voice in the meeting. The most important decision will be made by consensus, while the rest by a qualified majority,” one of the three representatives of the People’s Front in the talks Vyacheslav Kyrylenko told Capital.

He said that a preliminary agreement was reached on the composite of the coalition. In particular, only the deputy factions will be allowed to join it. “First-past-the-post and self-nominated winners will have to join a faction. Deputies that voted for the so-called “dictatorial laws” on January 16, members of the Opposition Bloc and members of the Party of Regions faction from 2007-2012 will not be accepted as members of the coalition,” Kyrylenko firmly stated.

Representative of Samopomich in the talks Oksana Syroyid, who chaired the meeting on Friday, specified for Capital that independent deputies can join the coalition, but they cannot be its founders as was the case in the formation of the parliamentary majority in February 2014. An approval of the council of the union will be required for an independent deputy to join the coalition.

Syroyid says that the parties of Oleh Lyashko and Yulia Tymoshenko have been given the opportunity to join the coalition of Samopomich, the PF and the PPB. “The working group shares the opinion that we are not against the participation of these political forces. The decision on accepting them to the coalition will be made by consensus,” said Syroyid.

However, representative of the People’s Front Pavlo Pynzenyk, who also participated in the talks, specified for the publication that representatives of Batkivshchyna and the Radical Party are being invited to participate in the working group, but their membership in the future coalition has so far not been discussed. “I cannot say this is for certain while the group is open only for discussing the future format of the coalition,” Pynzenyk noted.

Ihor Konenko, who is considered for the position of the vice chair of the PPB faction, told Capital that an agreement of the team of Oleh Lyashko to join the talks has been received. “It looks as though Batkivshchyna will also join us,” Kononenko added. The Radical Party confirms that it will join the talks on the formation of the coalition. “We will take part in the coalition only if the working group supports our program requirements with which we ran in the elections,” people’s deputy elected on the list of the RP Ihor Mosiychuk told Capital.

Staff issues

A source of the publication in the Presidential Administration says the participants of the coalition have constructive plans and the chances of reaching an agreement have considerably grown. Of course, he was unable to predict when the talks will be completed. Kononenko fears that if Lyashko and Tymoshenko join the talks they may drag out the process of agreeing on the coalition agreement as the potential members of the coalition do not have a common opinion about it. As such, the PPB insists that its variant of the document should be used as the basis of the coalition agreement. “We will not take the proposals of the PPB and the PF as a basis. This will be a new agreement in which all clauses will be jointly discussed,” stated Pynzenyk.

For the moment, the participants of official talks assure that staff issues will be put on the backburner until the principles of forming a coalition and the government’s accountability are agreed upon. “The premier and the government should be controlled by the coalition. They are hired managers. This is a civilized practice and this should be reflected in the coalition agreement,” Kononenko insists. So far the only personnel issue that has been agreed to is the proposal of President Petro Poroshenko to nominate Arseniy Yatsenyuk as a candidate for the Head of the Cabinet, he said. But, Yuriy Lutsenko, who was elected to the parliament on the list of the Batkivshchyna party, told the publication that he is aware of other talks about staff issues being held between the teams of the president and the premier. In particular, there are major disputes over the post of the minister of internal affairs. “The president is afraid that he will not be able to control the volunteer battalions of Ihor Kolomoiskiy and Arsen Avakov. For this reason, his political force is insisting on getting the post of the interior minister,” says Lutsenko. A source of the publication in the PF party informed that talks are currently under way on the posts of ministers of justice, healthcare, finance and the minister of the Cabinet.